Many thousands of books about Churchill have already been published since his death. Stelzer proves, though, that it is still possible to produce one that is both original and highly entertaining.
That was what it was like working for Churchill, as Cita Stelzer's glorious new book, weaving together first-hand recollections by his secretaries, shows. It was straight in at the deep end... Another devoted secretary, Grace Hamblin, was asked by Lady Churchill whether she had any ideas about how to quietly destroy the Graham Sutherland portrait of Winston, painted for his 80th birthday, which he detested.
Hamblin said she had a brother living nearby who would do it. 'So in the dead of night we took it to his house and burned it in his garden . . . It was a deadly secret.'
That deed was far outside the usual secretarial brief, but as this fascinating book shows, Churchill's secretaries would do anything to keep the great man happy.
